Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/138

 the finite, two elements that according to this great man were incompatible, proved to be one within the other. Whatever power he might have accorded to divisibility, to the mobility of matter, he could not admit that it had half-divine qualities. After all, he had grown too old to connect these phenomena with a system, to compare them with those of sleep, sight, and light. All his science, based upon the assertions of the school of Locke and Condillac, was in ruins. Seeing his hollow idols in pieces, his incredulity necessarily faltered. And so all the advantage in this struggle beween Catholic childhood and Voltairean old age, was to be with Ursule. A light was streaming on this dismantled fort, and on these ruins. The voice of prayer was bursting from the bosom of the fragments! Nevertheless, the stubborn old man picked a quarrel with his doubts. Although he was struck to the heart, he would not make up his mind, and constantly struggled against God. And yet, his spirit seemed wavering, he was no longer the same. Dreamy beyond measure, he would read Pascal’s Pensées. Bossuet’s sublime Histoire des Variations, he read Bonald and Saint-Augustin; he also insisted upon running through the works of Swedenborg and the late Saint-Martin, of which the mysterious man had spoken. The edifice built up in this man by materialism was cracking in every part, it only needed one more shake; and, when his heart was ripe for God, he fell into the heavenly vineyard as the fruits fall. Several times already whilst playing with the